Friday, May 25, 2012
Dining Soy Teriyaki Bistro: This Week's Dining Review
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 3:30 PM
- Photo: Michael W. Bunch
- Spicy pork bulgogi from Soy Teriyaki Bistro.
But word is getting out, and perhaps that obscurity will become a thing of the past. Bites' own Nicki P. Wood has written up Soy Teriyaki Bistro as this week's Dining review in the Scene.
"Like its hybrid name, the menu at Soy Teriyaki Bistro brings together elements from all over — a bit of Japanese, a hint of Singaporean, a lot of Korean — and seasons it with fusion to yield a menu that's brief but inexhaustible," Wood says.
She praises not just the food, but also the friendly atmosphere created by the owners: "Hanna and Chris Lee greet one and all as friends — and often they are. Soy has a lot of regulars, and the Lees are very outgoing. 'It's the environment we wanted. And Chris loves to talk,' said Hanna Lee, who developed the menu and does the cooking."
Hey, I want this place in my neighborhood! As Nicki concludes, "For a lucky part of Brentwood, it's their neighborhood spot — a continent-spanning sampler of delights that renders the global irresistibly local."
Wine Wandering Wino: Cutter Edition
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 8:08 AM
So in honor of memories of beers past and thinking of the bicycling "Cutters" from that classic movie Breaking Away, I figured we’d lead off this week’s Wandering Wino with a really fun beer event, the return of the Tour de Fat sponsored by New Belgium Beers.
The Tour de Fat will be held on Saturday, June 2, at Centennial Park with bike parade registration starting at 9 a.m., the parade at 10 and other festivities kicking off at 11 and running until 4 p.m.
The bike parade is always a hilarious display of tricked-out bikes and barely appropriate costumes, so drop by even if you don’t ride. The event benefits local nonprofit bicycle advocates, including SoundForest.org, Nashville Bicycle Alliance, Ride For Reading, Oasis Center and Walk Bike Nashville.
New Belgium also sponsors several fun pre-TdF parties the week preceding the event, so look for one that’s at your favorite watering hole:
Today, Friday, May 25
Tin Roof
Tour de Fat Promo
Fat Tire & Somersault Beer Specials
Give-aways!
6:00pm-8:00pmTuesday, May 29
Broadway Brewhouse Midtown
Tour de Fat Promo
New Belgium Beer Specials!
Free Give-aways
7:00pm-9:00pmThursday, May 31
12th South Taproom
Tour de Fat Promo
7:00pm-9pm
Win a New Belgium Cruiser!
Open Thread Difference of Opinion at Weekly Open Thread
Posted by Nicki Wood on Fri, May 25, 2012 at 5:41 AM
Go on, click it. Scroll down to Nashville. I'll wait.
Usually with these things, I get it. There's some sense to the ranking. Here, I'm flummoxed. Do we not have five or eight or 10 other popular "high-end" restaurants that deserve equal notice?
So I mused on Twitter (I'm @Nashmallow) about the algorithm used to assess the rankings, and the algorithmist tweeted back. It's all perfectly civil, you know, "sorry your favorites didn't make the list" or whatever. But still, there's a point to be made — why is someone far away from Nashville ranking our restaurants? I even get that maybe not a lot of Nashvillians use Urbanspoon, so the site doesn't have many reader reviews to draw from. But you have the Scene to refer to. I'm still a little huffy.
Share your thoughts in the comments, or get something off your chest. The open thread is the place to blow off steam, politely disagree and bitch and moan. As Dorothy Parks (or Alice Roosevelt Longworth) said, "If you can't say something good about someone, come sit next to me."
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Cheap Eats Celebrate Memorial Day Weekend with Half-Price Entrees at Sperry's
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 10:39 AM
This Sunday and Monday, May 27-28, both the Belle Meade and Cool Springs outposts of Sperry's are offering all entries (except lobster tails and crab legs) for half price from 5 p.m. until close. Despite the fact that the deal kicks off at 5, they still want to emphasize that it is not available during brunch in case you roll your lazy butt out of the rack at 5:30 looking for some cheap Eggs Benedict.
Seriously, this sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Head on out and enjoy some of their popular prime rib and a salad served on one of those cryogenically cooled steel plates at a great price.
Sperry's Belle Meade
5109 Harding Pike
Nashville, TN 37205
Sperry's Cool Springs
650 Frazier Drive
Franklin, TN 37067
Events You Can't Can? Then Take Nicki P. Wood's 'Canning With a Pressure Cooker' Class
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Thu, May 24, 2012 at 5:54 AM
I don't know about y'all, but I was brought up to fear the pressure cooker. Before the days of reliable pressure relief valves, my mother would clear the kitchen when the top began to dance on our cooker. When I shared this fear with Nicki a few years ago, she was kind enough to come to my house and show me how easy the new modern devices are to use, and she even made me a really nice 15-minute risotto.
Now she wants to share some of that knowledge with you, plus she'll be teaching about canning procedures as well.
Here's the syllabus:
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Coffee Filter Go for the Coffee, Stay for the Art: Bryce McCloud's Mural at Barista Parlor
Posted by Laura Hutson on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 4:49 PM
There are several reasons to stop by the just-opened fancy-pants coffee shop Barista Parlor (including but not limited to Mast Brothers chocolate, mugs that are the exact perfect size and weight, fantastic light fixtures, and of course, really great coffee), but if you're anything like me, you'll probably make a bee-line to the mural on the shop's back wall, inspect it from close up, gawk at the craftmanship, then back up and gawk at the artfulness of its presentation. It's the latest creation of Nashville printmaker Bryce McCloud, who runs Isle of Printing (for more on that, read this).
Fun and Games Jimmy Kelly's Owner Fulfills His Bet: Cooking His Heart Out at Rival Sunset Grill
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 11:08 AM
Because Rayburn's surrogate won a narrow decision of the fighter representing Jimmy Kelly's, Mike agreed to put on his chef's jacket and spend a day last week working in the kitchen at Rayburn's Sunset Grill.
We sent ace photog Eric England over to document the event, and it looks like everyone had a good-natured fun time. Check out the pictures after the jump:
Good advice Wing Wednesday: Kevin Roberts Wants to Teach You to Wing It
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:57 AM
Roberts is a partner in a popular chain of tavern/bowling alleys in San Diego (too bad he hasn't opened one here), so he has a lot of experience making crowd-pleasing wings. So much so that Frank's RedHot Sauce has signed him up as their national spokesman and brand ambassador. He is also the official wing consultant for Yankee Stadium. Now that's a position I was unaware was available.
I spoke with Roberts about grilling and winging it for about an hour last week while attending the Memphis in May World BBQ Championship, where he was presiding over the Frank's Hot Wing Eating competitions that took place next to the main stage every couple of hours. As a representative of Frank's, which is a member of the French's family of products, Roberts naturally prefers some of their other wares like Cattleman's BBQ Sauce and French's mustard when he is grilling.
This isn't as much of a pander as you might think, as many of the winning competitors at Memphis in May endorsed Cattleman's, and Frank's is the original buffalo wing sauce. When Roberts makes ribs, he slathers his ribs in French's to add just a little tang to them, but more importantly to keep them moist while they cook. Most of the mustard burns off anyway, so you'd probably only notice a slight nuance in the flavors afterwards. For his wet rib sauce, he mixes Frank's and Cattleman's to make what he calls his "Tavern-style" sauce.
For wings, he suggests boiling them in your favorite craft beer for about 10 minutes until the wings are cooked through and really tender. Since nobody likes soggy wings, you need to crisp them up somehow, so he recommends either flash-frying them or grilling them until the skin is crispy before tossing them in the Tavern-style sauce.
I tried some of his wings, and I have to admit that for ease of preparation and the sweet/hot flavor that I usually prefer, they were spot on. I have generally preferred Alton Brown's preparation in the past, but dang, those things take two hours to make. I can use that extra time to eat more wings.
Roberts shared his easy recipe with Bites readers:
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Events Fire Up the Big Green Egg for Hearth and Grill's Backyard Challenge
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 7:37 AM
If you're a grill pro, you might want to try to grab one of the last remaining entry spots for the Hearth and Grill Shop's Backyard Challenge BBQ Cook-Off on June 2. The entry fee is $75 and there are both gas and charcoal divisions, and chicken, rib and dessert categories. Grillers will compete for more than $7,000 in cash and prizes with judging starting at noon.
Here's the rest of the information on the event:
Coffee Filter Roast Inc. Closes Coffeehouse But Rolls Out New Product: Bottled Cold-Brewed Coffee
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 5:57 AM
Roast Inc., the family-owned coffee roasting company on Trousdale Lane in the Crieve Hall neighborhood, has closed the retail coffeehouse side of the operation to concentrate on catering and wholesale. At the same time, the company is introducing a unique new local product: cold-brewed coffee in a bottle, which will be sold at Whole Foods and three local farmers’ markets.
Lesa and Brad Wood opened the cafe in 2010 to showcase their beans, which Brad purchases from “microlots” produced by single small estates in Central and South America, Indonesia and Africa. Lesa handles the craft of roasting, and she’s the one who ran the coffeehouse, specializing in brewing by the cup using artisan methods. (The coffeehouse celebrated its one-year anniversary with a renovation that made it an even nicer spot to sip a well-sourced, well-roasted coffee brewed by the cup.)
But the success of the wholesale and catering side of the business far outpaced the retail, Lesa told me. For one thing, Roast Inc. secured a deal in late 2011 to supply coffee beans to both local Whole Foods stores. To accommodate the demand, Lesa opened a separate roasting facility in February, a few doors down from the cafe in the same strip on Trousdale.
A couple weeks ago, Wood simply shut down the coffeehouse so she could concentrate on the other aspects of the business, working out of the roastery alone. The lease on the store space was up, she says, and the neighborhood is a bit too isolated to generate the retail traffic to support a coffeehouse.
“But we didn’t want to leave the Crieve Hall customers high and dry,” she says. So every Friday from noon to 5 p.m. she and a barista open up the roasting facility to customers so people can sip free samples of the different coffees and buy beans.
And now, customers can also pick up chilled bottles of Roast Inc. Cold-Filtered Coffee. She said it comes in two varieties: black coffee and a Vietnamese-style version made with sweetened milk. The bottled coffee will soon be sold at Whole Foods, too.
The roastery is at 4825 Trousdale Drive, suite 218. Roast Inc. also sells at the 12South Farmers Market (3:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesdays), the East Nashville Farmers’ Market (3:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays) and the Franklin Farmers Market (8 to 1 p.m. Saturdays).
For updates, follow Roast Inc. on Facebook or Twitter, or email lesa(at)roastinc.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.
